Ballots by mail: security and safeguards
EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. - With just about a week to go before Election Day, much of the focus at local clerk and recorder's offices right now is on election security.
Colorado is considered the gold standard for elections, but voter fraud, while rare, has happened in El Paso County. So what are officials doing this year to protect your vote?
The mantra at the El Paso County Clerk and Recorder's Office is: "We make it easy to vote, but hard to cheat."
And that's thanks in part to the many safeguards in place, including ballot signature verification. El Paso County Clerk and Recorder, Chuck Broerman estimates on average, just over half a percentage point of total ballots are flagged each election.
If we do the math, roughly 450,000 ballots will be sent out to registered voters in the county for this election, according to Broerman. That will equal roughly 2,700 ballots to be looked at for further review.
"We will send a cure letter out to those folks to see if they did sign that ballot, and many of them are then determined that yes they did and we are able to resolve those," says Broerman. "And if not, that is sent on to the District Attorney's Office and then they investigate."
According to data from the Clerk and Recorder's office, there were 1,987 signature discrepancies for the 2016 general election. But out of that batch, four individuals were investigated and later charged by the District Attorney. They pleaded guilty to forgery, voting twice and election interference.
Not every county publicly reports voter fraud convictions, but Broerman says he thinks El Paso County may prosecute the most voter fraud cases in the state. After 2016, five more possible cases of voter fraud were identified in the 2017-2019 general elections.
"It is also credit to the District Attorney and the philosophy he sets forth," says Broerman. "He's got a lot of priorities and he could do other things and they are very busy, but I appreciate their dedication that they put into it. It's important to our citizens and I know our citizens ask for that."
When it comes to voter fraud convictions at a national level, Colorado ranks middle of the pack. At the top of the list is Minnesota, followed by Texas and California. South Carolina, Utah, and Montana come out on the bottom of the list with only one case. That's according to the Heritage Foundation's Election Fraud Database that looked at information from 46 states.
Broerman says there are four big measures in place to prevent voter fraud.
- Mail-in ballots create a paper trail. There is a physical record for elections officials to double-check if needed.
- Cybersecurity is airtight. None of the computer systems or ballot-counting machines are ever connected to the internet.
- The signature verification process ensures the correct voter voted.
- Audits are conducted to verify the ballot count per county.
Colorado leads the way with the lowest signature rejection rate in the county. The Secretary of State's Office says it only happens to about one percent of voters and odds are the discrepancy was an honest mistake and can be fixed.
But there are some important reminders to note when you do sign your ballot. Sign it like you would sign an important document or check. If you are worried about this, take a look at the signature on your driver's license and try and replicate that one, because unless you are new to Colorado, that's the one on file with the Clerk and Recorder's Office. Be sure and sign your ballot on a flat surface.
"The thing that happens sometimes is that is what I call the steering wheel signature," says Broerman. "People are heading to their drop box and they are in line to drop off their ballots and that box and the last thing they do is sign on the steering wheel and that might not be the best platform in the world to give us a good signature."
